A decade ago, Apple Inc. helped revitalize a music industry hit hard by online piracy with its iTunes Store. Now, amid a steady slump in digital downloads, the industry is hopeful that the tech giant’s new streaming service will give record companies another desperately ...

The decline in worldwide recorded-music revenues slowed last year as more people subscribed to online services. The proportion of sales from digital destinations equaled those from physical formats for the first time. Global revenue for the industry, whose best-selling album was the movie soundtrack ...

Sony Network Entertainment International LLC has linked up with major European online music provider Spotify Ltd. to launch a music-streaming service through its PlayStation network in 41 countries, the company said Monday. The list does not yet include Japan. Sony Corp.’s network entertainment unit ...

Hip-hop megastar Jay Z, real name Shawn Carter, has fulfilled all the conditions to complete a takeover of Swedish technology company Aspiro, after shareholders gave the necessary approval to his offer. The Roc-A-Fella boss will hope that success is beyond reasonable doubt for Aspiro, ...

Bjork has become the latest among a small number of pop stars to refuse to stream an album, saying it was a matter of “respect” for artists. Bjork Gudmundsdottir, who goes by her first name, surprised fans when she suddenly put a digital version ...

The Japanese music market has faced hard times as of late. Starting with an announcement from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in March that the country’s music sales dropped 16.7 percent in 2013, the past 12 months saw no particular upswing in ...

When looking back on the year in music, the big question music fans should be asking themselves is, “Who was music being made for in 2014?” Looking at the broader picture, we can find the answers writ large across the Japanese music scene. Is ...

Streaming has rapidly transformed pop music’s landscape but even more dramatic changes could be in store as companies eye the vast, barely touched markets of the developing world. Spotify and its rivals were among the biggest music headlines in 2014 as streaming services quickly ...

Spotify stopped streaming Taylor Swift’s music at her request Monday, setting up a business struggle between the industry’s most popular artist and the leading purveyor of a new music distribution system. The music streaming service sounded like a spurned boyfriend in a statement announcing ...

Buying music is passe; nowadays it’s all about renting. Billboard reports that sales of “album plus track equivalent albums” fell by 7.6 percent in 2013. (Among subcategories of both digital and physical media, only vinyl sales increased last year.) The new hot trends are ...

While the Japanese music industry ended last year on a promise of change, 2013 has highlighted a few of the ingrained practices that are going to be a little bit more difficult to dislodge. One industry story that caught the interest of the international ...

This was supposed to be the year that changed the Japanese music business. Back in March I wrote that major international streaming services Spotify and Rdio would likely launch in Japan “sometime in the next few months.” That, I confidently predicted, would be a ...